Myths in the Torah and the universal deluge.

Of the myths in the Torah the universal deluge, or Noah’s flood as it is sometimes called, intrigues me. Or more correctly the thought processes of those who believe the universal deluge actually happened intrigue me. Those who believe seem to be fewer and farther between but a recent conversation with one who believes brought this topic to the fore. We also discussed creationism and the 6000 year old earth myths but those are topics for other threads.

The logical problems, as others have stated on this forum, are typically dismissed with the invocation of faith. However, I have found that open discussion often reveals cracks or outright doubts in the minds of those who profess belief. Some of the bigger issues with a global flood are nicely summarized at talkorigins.org and the materials posted there have led to interesting discussions with Jewish and Christian friends. The following seem to be particularly effective at revealing doubts.

“4. Caring for the Animals

Special diets. Many animals, especially insects, require special diets. Koalas, for example, require eucalyptus leaves, and silkworms eat nothing but mulberry leaves. For thousands of plant species (perhaps even most plants), there is at least one animal that eats only that one kind of plant. How did Noah gather all those plants aboard, and where did he put them?

Other animals are strict carnivores, and some of those specialize on certain kinds of foods, such as small mammals, insects, fish, or aquatic invertebrates. How did Noah determine and provide for all those special diets?

Fresh foods. Many animals require their food to be fresh. Many snakes, for example, will eat only live foods (or at least warm and moving). Parasitoid wasps only attack living prey. Most spiders locate their prey by the vibrations it produces. [Foelix, 1996] Most herbivorous insects require fresh food. Aphids, in fact, are physically incapable of sucking from wilted leaves. How did Noah keep all these food supplies fresh?

Food preservation/Pest control. Food spoilage is a major concern on long voyages; it was especially thus before the inventions of canning and refrigeration. The large quantities of food aboard would have invited infestations of any of hundreds of stored product pests (especially since all of those pests would have been aboard), and the humidity one would expect aboard the Ark would have provided an ideal environment for molds. How did Noah keep pests from consuming most of the food?

Ventilation. The ark would need to be well ventilated to disperse the heat, humidity, and waste products (including methane, carbon dioxide, and ammonia) from the many thousands of animals which were crowded aboard. Woodmorappe (pp. 37-42) interprets Genesis 6:16 to mean there was an 18-inch opening all around the top, and says that this, with slight breezes, would have been enough to provide adequate ventilation. However, the ark was divided into separate rooms and decks (Gen. 6:14,16). How was fresh air circulated throughout the structure?

Sanitation. The ungulates alone would have produced tons of manure a day. The waste on the lowest deck at least (and possibly the middle deck) could not simply be pushed overboard, since the deck was below the water line; the waste would have to be carried up a deck or two. Vermicomposting could reduce the rate of waste accumulation, but it requires maintenance of its own. How did such a small crew dispose of so much waste?

Exercise/Animal handling. The animals aboard the ark would have been in very poor shape unless they got regular exercise. (Imagine if you had to stay in an area the size of a closet for a year.) How were several thousand diverse kinds of animals exercised regularly?

Manpower for feeding, watering, etc. How did a crew of eight manage a menagerie larger and more diverse than that found in zoos requiring many times that many employees? Woodmorappe claims that eight people could care for 16000 animals, but he makes many unrealistic and invalid assumptions. Here are a few things he didn’t take into account:

* Feeding the animals would take much longer if the food was in containers to protect it from pests.
* Many animals would have to be hand-fed.
* Watering several animals at once via troughs would not work aboard a ship. The water would be sloshed out by the ship’s roll.
* Many animals, in such an artificial environment, would have required additional special care. For example, all of the hoofed animals would need to have their hooves trimmed several times during the year. [Batten, 1976, pp. 39-42]
* Not all manure could be simply pushed overboard; a third of it at least would have to be carried up at least one deck.
* Corpses of the dead animals would have to be removed regularly.
* Animals can’t be expected to run laps and return to their cages without a lot of human supervision.

Most people who believe in a global flood also believe that the flood was responsible for creating all fossil-bearing strata. (The alternative, that the strata were laid down slowly and thus represent a time sequence of several generations at least, would prove that some kind of evolutionary process occurred.) However, there is a great deal of contrary evidence.

Before you argue that fossil evidence was dated and interpreted to meet evolutionary assumptions, remember that the geological column and the relative dates therein were laid out by people who believed divine creation, before Darwin even formulated his theory. (See, for example, Moore [1973], or the closing pages of Dawson [1868].)

Why are geological eras consistent worldwide? How do you explain worldwide agreement between “apparent” geological eras and several different (independent) radiometric and nonradiometric dating methods? [e.g., Short et al, 1991]

How was the fossil record sorted in an order convenient for evolution? Ecological zonation, hydrodynamic sorting, and differential escape fail to explain:

* the extremely good sorting observed. Why didn’t at least one dinosaur make it to the high ground with the elephants?
* the relative positions of plants and other non-motile life. (Yun, 1989, describes beautifully preserved algae from Late Precambrian sediments. Why don’t any modern-looking plants appear that low in the geological column?)
* why some groups of organisms, such as mollusks, are found in many geologic strata.
* why organisms (such as brachiopods) which are very similar hydrodynamically (all nearly the same size, shape, and weight) are still perfectly sorted.
* why extinct animals which lived in the same niches as present animals didn’t survive as well. Why did no pterodons make it to high ground?
* how coral reefs hundreds of feet thick and miles long were preserved intact with other fossils below them.
* why small organisms dominate the lower strata, whereas fluid mechanics says they would sink slower and thus end up in upper strata.
* why artifacts such as footprints and burrows are also sorted. [Crimes & Droser, 1992]
* why no human artifacts are found except in the very uppermost strata. If, at the time of the Flood, the earth was overpopulated by people with technology for shipbuilding, why were none of their tools or buildings mixed with trilobite or dinosaur fossils?
* why different parts of the same organisms are sorted together. Pollen and spores are found in association with the trunks, leaves, branches, and roots produced by the same plants [Stewart, 1983].
* why ecological information is consistent within but not between layers. Fossil pollen is one of the more important indicators of different levels of strata. Each plant has different and distinct pollen, and, by telling which plants produced the fossil pollen, it is easy to see what the climate was like in different strata. Was the pollen hydraulically sorted by the flood water so that the climatic evidence is different for each layer?”

“The [Torah] is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief-call it what you will-than any book ever written; it has emptied more churches than all the counterattractions of cinema, motor bicycle and golf course.”

For me, the best way to look at the early chapters of Genesis is that the primitive author was explaining in language and concepts that made sense to him the divine revelation that he was receiving. To attempt to fit the creation hymn of Genesis 1 into a modern scientific framework is a fruitless endeavor. It should not be taken literally, but it should be understood as the author’s response, based on culturally-determined language of observation and put into poetic form, to the inspiration he received from his encounter with God. The abiding truths that we take from it are that God exists and that he is responsible for the existence of the universe, including us. To insist on a literal interpretation of those passages, leading to a belief in a 6000 year-old universe, is simply missing the point.

The flood story needs to be understood from the point of view of Noah. I think there is history behind the story, but it does not deal with a literal worldwide flood. If a regional flood took place in the lowlands of Mesopotamia, and Noah was on a boat in the middle of it, it would seem to him as if the entire world (his world) had flooded. If only he and his family and some animals of the region survived, he would feel that he had found grace in the eyes of God and that everyone else around him had been judged. The account of it that is passed down is more universalized, because it does apply to all people in a sense. But the truth that we take from it is that God is sovereign over his creation, can bring judgment, and can save his people.

A wooden, hyper-literalistic interpretation of these ancient texts can unnecessarily put faith at odds with science. More flexibility is needed.

The flood story needs to be understood from the point of view of Noah.

Or Utnaptishim. Frankly, Bruce, the Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian versions already depicted an universalized version of the story (i.e.: world wide flooding, destruction of all man kind, saving of all animal life, etc…) long before the Biblical version ever was ever written out on parchment. Personally, and others are free to argue with this, I’ve always believed that much of what we call “Genesis” was copied by the Jews from Babylonians during their enslavement, but that’s just me.

However, the universal flood myth is an interesting one. From the Grecian Deucalion to Welsh Dwyfan and Dwyfach, and from the Hindu Manu to the unnamed flood survivors depicted in murals by the Inca, the flood myth is found all over the world.

Many explanations have been proffered for the origin of this myth, from particularly bad rainy seasons along rivers to the sudden flooding of the Mediterranean into the Black Sea. None of these explanations seem definitive. Besides, it is a logical fallacy to try to give rational explanations to events that may not need them.

But what is certain is that the story is simply a myth. We will probably never know the name given to our floating protagonist by the long forgotten concoctor of this tale, or what inspired him (her) to invent the story in the first place.

The likely explanation is that these tales were invented long in the past, perhaps even before primitive man first traced his hand on the wall with a carbonized stick left over from a fire, thereby discovering art. The tale may or may not have any historical precedence, and may just have been a simple fish story that was constantly enlarged in the telling.

Regardless, I wouldn’t lose any sleep contemplating the rationality of it.

People have said that an infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of keyboards would produce the works of Shakespeare, but the internet has shown this to be wrong.

The flood story needs to be understood from the point of view of Noah.

Wait, why not in the context of the bible. Put the flood aside, Noah and his sons and their families were the only humans on earth to survive, and the bible going forward is contingent on this point. So, in context, the flood cannot be myth or regional etc as it is foundational to what comes after. So you need to either believe it or assign the whole rest of the bible to myth.

Why is there Something instead of Nothing: No reason or ever knowable reason.

The flood story needs to be understood from the point of view of Noah.

Wait, why not in the context of the bible. Put the flood aside, Noah and his sons and their families were the only humans on earth to survive, and the bible going forward is contingent on this point. So, in context, the flood cannot be myth or regional etc as it is foundational to what comes after. So you need to either believe it or assign the whole rest of the bible to myth.

No. The story of the gospels stands on its own. If there was a man named Jesus that did what the gospels say, that is all that is necessary for the Christian faith. Jesus’ use of the OT (including the Genesis story of Noah) can be seen as him working with what was available to him. Since the people accepted it as scripture, so did Jesus, and then went about reinterpreting it and setting things in order. The OT was an inspired revelation about God, but it was not the perfect revelation of God that Jesus brought.

The flood story needs to be understood from the point of view of Noah.

Or Utnaptishim. Frankly, Bruce, the Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian versions already depicted an universalized version of the story (i.e.: world wide flooding, destruction of all man kind, saving of all animal life, etc…) long before the Biblical version ever was ever written out on parchment.

However, the universal flood myth is an interesting one. From the Grecian Deucalion to Welsh Dwyfan and Dwyfach, and from the Hindu Manu to the unnamed flood survivors depicted in murals by the Inca, the flood myth is found all over the world.

The fact that the flood story is universal is some evidence that there was a factual event behind it. The Hebrew version differs from the Sumerian, and it is the one that was adopted in the Jewish scripture and accepted by Jesus. While a hyper-literal interpretation of it is not called for, I still think it is essentially historical, just in a limited scope. But I don’t lose any sleep over it, because Jesus has given us the necessary interpretation of it in the gospels, and has instituted a new covenant for us.

No. The story of the gospels stands on its own. If there was a man named Jesus that did what the gospels say, that is all that is necessary for the Christian faith. Jesus’ use of the OT (including the Genesis story of Noah) can be seen as him working with what was available to him. Since the people accepted it as scripture, so did Jesus, and then went about reinterpreting it and setting things in order. The OT was an inspired revelation about God, but it was not the perfect revelation of God that Jesus brought.

LOL! So god screwed around with the Jews for a couple of thousand years trying to tell them the score, but they got it all wrong (that explains why they could never get on gods good side). So god sends himself in the form of Jesus to put things right once and for all by reinterpreting the Jewish myths.

Why is there Something instead of Nothing: No reason or ever knowable reason.

People always wish to be able to lick their way to a rich, chewy truth that they suppose to be at the center of a myths hard candy shell.

The thing of it is, many myths are simply hollow. That colorful accretion is all that exist.

Man thinks in symbols. We abstract the world around us into easily digestible packets of thought that we use to communicate ideas to those around us. Some times we become so attached to the symbol itself that we lose sight of it’s original meaning.

It’s very likely that most of the myths that have come down to us from antiquity are literate mans attempt to rationalize the oral tales that had reached him, however garbled, from a dim, half remembered past. It’s also likely that these tales had become so garbled that the original meaning of the story had been lost, or perverted. Just as today, men tried to reinterpret these stories in to a modern idiom, thereby further altering the message until they became a tale unconnected to their source.

As suggested, the very universality of the flood myth would seem to preclude any of the individual stories accurately reflecting the original, or even suggesting that some historical event would actually lie at the heart of it. All it suggest is that the disaster tale has a far longer history than “the Towering Inferno.”

Why must there be an historical truth to this myth? Do you believe that only modern man had the capacity to dream or imagine stories? Was the imaginary tale invented by Lucian in his ironically titled “A True Story?” Was the lie only created with the advent of text?

The Noachian flood is every bit as likely a fantasy as tales of Superman and alien invasions. One need not live through an experience to imagine what that experience might be like. Just as with fairy tales, Flood stories tend to be cautionary tales. Most seem to present an element of (a) god(s) wrath upon those who have displeased him. Many also feature the element of the one individual who has found favor with the god(s) being handed instructions on how to survive. Parables of this nature are rarely produced through simple reportage.

The idea of dragons seems to be universal as well. Many culture have creature that are reflective of Vampires. Surely the universality of these archetypes do not suggest the actual existence of these beings, and neither does the universality of flood myths. Archetypal figures and tales usually reflect the commonality of experience and fears. The sleep of reason not only produces monsters, but also disaster tales. One need not have experienced a particularly devastating flood to imagine what the consequences of one would be. One does not need to have received advice from “on high” to imagine what form such advice might take.

Some have argued that the ancients were far more prosaic than we are, and that such tales are their primitive way of explaining scientific phenomena. I would argue that primitive man thought just as symbolically, just as abstractly as we do, if not even more so. Shamanism and totemism would suggest symbolic thinking. But when the function of a ritual expires, the form often remains, and a new function is ascribed to it.

Old myths die hard. We will often re-mold and remake them into our image rather than abandon them. We force them to fit our times and culture in ways that work for us, often to the detriment of the myth.

Anyway, Bruce, having the writers of the New Testament place an endorsement of the noachian version of the tale upon the lips of Jesus no more testifies to the veracity of the tale than Plato’s placing the Atlantis tale upon the lips of Socrates. As our own Unsmoked routinely shows, one can make anyone say anything when one is wielding the power of the pen (or processor). I could write a tale wherein Abraham Lincoln described his adventures with the Sasquatch, but that doesn’t mean one should start looking for Bigfoot.

LOL! So god screwed around with the Jews for a couple of thousand years trying to tell them the score, but they got it all wrong (that explains why they could never get on gods good side). So god sends himself in the form of Jesus to put things right once and for all by reinterpreting the Jewish myths.

Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. If you could silence your inner mocker for about 30 minutes (“go sit in the corner until you learn to behave!”), you would see the truth. Let’s amend your post as follows:

“So God patiently dealt with the Jews for a couple of thousand years gradually revealing himself, but while they progressed in understanding from the Torah to the Prophets, they still lacked full understanding. So God sent himself in the form of Jesus to put things right once and for all, including reinterpreting the Jewish scriptures.” Now, that’s better.

Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. If you could silence your inner mocker for about 30 minutes (“go sit in the corner until you learn to behave!”), you would see the truth. Let’s amend your post as follows:

“So God patiently dealt with the Jews for a couple of thousand years gradually revealing himself, but while they progressed in understanding from the Torah to the Prophets, they still lacked full understanding. So God sent himself in the form of Jesus to put things right once and for all, including reinterpreting the Jewish scriptures.” Now, that’s better.

I used to think it was amazing how anyone could believe that the bible was true, now I find whats more amazing it what they’ll do to make it true…......

Through science we know there was no global flood and a regional one is incoherent in the context of the story. So really what choice does someone who wants to believe, but can’t ignore the facts, have, except to assign it to myth and claim that their Christian (or other) view is the real truth (or at least the better rendering of the myths).

Why is there Something instead of Nothing: No reason or ever knowable reason.

Through science we know there was no global flood and a regional one is incoherent in the context of the story. So really what choice does someone who wants to believe, but can’t ignore the facts, have, except to assign it to myth and claim that their Christian (or other) view is the real truth (or at least the better rendering of the myths).

You were getting warm, but now you are getting colder. Look at Genesis 7:20 - “the waters prevailed 15 cubits upward and the mountains were covered.” 15 cubits is about 22 feet. “Mountains” can also be rendered “hills.” The description is of a local flood in a relatively flat terrain like southern Mesopotamia. But, enough of this.

Through science we know there was no global flood and a regional one is incoherent in the context of the story. So really what choice does someone who wants to believe, but can’t ignore the facts, have, except to assign it to myth and claim that their Christian (or other) view is the real truth (or at least the better rendering of the myths).

You were getting warm, but now you are getting colder. Look at Genesis 7:20 - “the waters prevailed 15 cubits upward and the mountains were covered.” 15 cubits is about 22 feet. “Mountains” can also be rendered “hills.” The description is of a local flood in a relatively flat terrain like southern Mesopotamia. But, enough of this.

So god didn’t speak to Noah, didn’t tell him that he was going to kill all men and all living things on earth because they were wicked in his eyes, commanded him to build an ark for no reason when he could have walked out faster, the animals as well. 22 feet would not cover every tree and hill for as far as one could see, nor last nearly a year, nor bring the ark to rest on the “mountains of Ararat”. And after the flood comes the genealogies of Noah,s sons and their repopulation of the earth which the rest of the bible rests on. And finally gods bow in the clouds promise to never again flood the earth, your version makes god a liar as local floods happen everyday and kill people everyday, so gods promise only makes sense in the context it was stated in;

9:11 And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.

9:15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

Why is there Something instead of Nothing: No reason or ever knowable reason.

So god didn’t speak to Noah, didn’t tell him that he was going to kill all men and all living things on earth because they were wicked in his eyes, commanded him to build an ark for no reason when he could have walked out faster, the animals as well. 22 feet would not cover every tree and hill for as far as one could see, nor last nearly a year, nor bring the ark to rest on the “mountains of Ararat”. And after the flood comes the genealogies of Noah,s sons and their repopulation of the earth which the rest of the bible rests on. And finally gods bow in the clouds promise to never again flood the earth, your version makes god a liar as local floods happen everyday and kill people everyday, so gods promise only makes sense in the context it was stated in;

First, the race of “Adam” that is the focus of the early chapters of Genesis is not the same as homo sapien sapiens, IMO. Genesis focuses on the civilization that developed in Mesopotamia and spread from there. Noah’s interpretation of what God revealed to him becomes a universal axiom because, like the rest of us, Noah saw reality as revolving around him. To him, God had destroyed “the world” and had saved him.

This interpretation gets written down and becomes accepted Scripture. In the process of progressive revelation, God takes our understanding of his revelation, and uses that as a springboard for further revelation. The laws of Moses are an advancement over the revelation to Abraham, and the prophets are an advancement over the Torah. Jesus comes on the scene as express image of God, takes the scripture that man has written in response to God’s revelation, reinterprets and fulfills it, and then institutes a new covenant that correctly reveals God’s will. So the development of scripture is a dynamic and dialectical process in which man encounters God and records the encounter; then God takes that response and give new revelation, until ultimately he reveals himself in the flesh.

This is a theory of revelation and inspiration of scripture that is more reflective of a living relationship between God and his creation, in which the creation (man, in this instance) participates in the outcome. The Bible is not a book dropped out of the sky, but is simply the record of this revelatory process.

First, the race of “Adam” that is the focus of the early chapters of Genesis is not the same as homo sapien sapiens, IMO. Genesis focuses on the civilization that developed in Mesopotamia and spread from there. Noah’s interpretation of what God revealed to him becomes a universal axiom because, like the rest of us, Noah saw reality as revolving around him. To him, God had destroyed “the world” and had saved him.

This interpretation gets written down and becomes accepted Scripture. In the process of progressive revelation, God takes our understanding of his revelation, and uses that as a springboard for further revelation. The laws of Moses are an advancement over the revelation to Abraham, and the prophets are an advancement over the Torah. Jesus comes on the scene as express image of God, takes the scripture that man has written in response to God’s revelation, reinterprets and fulfills it, and then institutes a new covenant that correctly reveals God’s will. So the development of scripture is a dynamic and dialectical process in which man encounters God and records the encounter; then God takes that response and give new revelation, until ultimately he reveals himself in the flesh.

This is a theory of revelation and inspiration of scripture that is more reflective of a living relationship between God and his creation, in which the creation (man, in this instance) participates in the outcome. The Bible is not a book dropped out of the sky, but is simply the record of this revelatory process.

Well, not only do you slap the Jewish faith in the face and relegate any truth in the OT to whatever one thinks they can get away with, you turn right around and claim that your belief, Christianity, is the real truth of it all. How convenient. Problem is no more truth or any less myth can be found in the NT then the OT. If Jesus was the final truth to set things straight, then he failed miserably as every Christian I’ve met has their own version of what the real truth is.

Why is there Something instead of Nothing: No reason or ever knowable reason.

Well, not only do you slap the Jewish faith in the face and relegate any truth in the OT to whatever one thinks they can get away with, you turn right around and claim that your belief, Christianity, is the real truth of it all. How convenient. Problem is no more truth or any less myth can be found in the NT then the OT. If Jesus was the final truth to set things straight, then he failed miserably as every Christian I’ve met has their own version of what the real truth is.

It’s not really a slap at the Jewish faith. They had the right God and understood him better than anyone else. And as for Christians all having their own version, I don’t see that as being fundamentally different than a large group of siblings all having their own relationship with a father or mother. Each one interprets the relationship individually.

It’s not really a slap at the Jewish faith. They had the right God and understood him better than anyone else. And as for Christians all having their own version, I don’t see that as being fundamentally different than a large group of siblings all having their own relationship with a father or mother. Each one interprets the relationship individually.

Have you ask many Jews how they feel about your view that their holy book is mainly a mix of myth and personal opinion and that it’s your holy book that is the real deal….....

And what is so different about the NT? The gospels are incoherent, written after the fact with no reasonable evidence of any first person account. The virgin birth is clearly a mistranslation, the temptations of Christ make no sense in context. And half of the NT is attributed to Paul who never met Jesus, so the biggest part of the final truth NT was written through revelation to Paul, something god failed to do with any Jew over thousands of years,why because thats what works for Christians.

Sorry Bruce, but yours is just another one in millions of views of what the truth is, better then some maybe not as good as others. But the one thing they all have in common is trying to make the square peg of superstition fit the round hole of reality.

Why is there Something instead of Nothing: No reason or ever knowable reason.